RESIDENTS of Lanstephan last Thursday met at an empty site on the estate to put forward ideas for creating a modern play park there.

Members of the recently formed Lanstephan Play Park Group in Launceston — Angie Symonds, Iris Lindsay, Pat Ward, Debbie Gabriel and Jo Lovell — organised the event to let parents and children have their say on the plans the group has had drawn up and to write down ideas of the sort of equipment they would like to see on the site.

The group had asked children's play area equipment manufacturer 'HAGS SMP' draw up a design which would cover the top half of the empty space, full of play park equipment from the conventional swings, climbing frames and slides to the more modern surf-swings, bucket-swings and monkey-bars.

Angie said: "It's just an idea of how the area could look, and for everything in the design, it would cost £58,000 — which yes is a lot of money, but it's definitely doable."

To get an idea of what the residents, particularly the children, want from the play park, the group members set out three boards, entitled plan A: to completely refurbish the whole park, B: to develop the top half of the park, and C: to leave it as it is.

On each board the residents could write the sort of equipment they would like to see, getting ideas from catalogues of play equipment, before voting for one of the three proposals.

One of the children said they would like to see an assault course, a shelter and a range of other equipment for all ages so that everyone could enjoy the park together, while others wrote that they want to see all the equipment they see at other parks in Launceston, such as swings, slides, climbing frames, roundabouts and monkey-bars.

With the area being available to any age group, some parents thought it would be a good idea to only fill half the park with play equipment that would predominantly be used by younger children so that the other half could be left as an area for older children, with the option of playing games such as basketball and football, as well as to skateboard, cycle and rollerblade.

For the full report, and a round-up of the area news and sport, see this week's edition of the Post.